Magda has Candy!

In case you're not sure, Magda is one of our very talented design team members for the store,

 and she has candy on her new jewellery studio blog. 

Go take a peek! 

the whole box...

ten minute tuesdays #6

Hello and welcome to ten minute tuesdays. 

Confession time.  

Not a lot has gone on here on the creative front. We had family gathering and taxi of Mum all weekend for various parties. Then towards the end of last week I got a call asking, or was it telling me, that I needed to go into hospital...erm Monday. Ha!  Nothing like a bit of notice. Could I go the following day for my pre-op checks as well.  In all seriousness with that and all the prep I needed to do there was not a chance for ten minutes.  

So off I went yesterday to get my procedure done under a general anaesthetic.  Nothing major, but man I am wiped out today. 

What I will leave you with is something that did only take me ten minutes - shoving a few images in my Project Life album. Its not getting very far as I'm not too great at remembering to take photo's and then getting them printed off! I will get there though. 

 And it certainly helps when the kids want to do some pictures for me to go in it.

I'm hoping you've had a better week that I have and have found ten minutes to play some where during the last 7 days.  Please do share, I do love a good nose! 

Until next time, happy creating!

ten minute tuesdays #5

And a jolly good morning to you! Even the sun is shining here in East Yorkshire. 

I've managed a couple of creative bursts this week and I have finished off a page I started in week 3! Yay for me!!  Whoop whoop and all that...  

The background did take me just ten minutes, standing up hovvering over my desk using what was close at hand. When I came back to it it needed more white and another colour. Enter Glitz tapes! Love that stuff.  And, believe it or not, sticky notes, the page marker type ones. I have a whole set of the alphabet all printed on kraft post its which I got from Papermash ages ago. 

I also added some circles.  The black ones were done with some new tools samples I was sent, and the white ones have been done with a Montana pen. 

That's me for this week.  As always if you are joining me, don't forget to leave a comment with a link to your blog post so I can see where your creativity has taken you this week.

ten minute tuesday #4

Good morning and welcome. 

How have you got on this last week?  Manage to squeeze in any 10 minute slots of creativity amongst the chaos of life in general.  I thought my chance was going to go out of the window after discovering I needed to redecorate the stairs and landing.  Good old Dulux Mixing.  Great, but not when you get one pot from one place with a manual mixer... yeah, I know you know where it's going. Needless to say, that one store won't be getting my Dulux Mixer business! I'd rather do the hour trip to B&Q. 

In one way it's meant I've had a paint brush in my hand for more than ten minutes this week.  Just not sure I'd class it as being creative.  And after that little moan, I'll move along... 

My creative flirts this week are in my art journal again. This one is a nano flirt. 

Why nano? Because, if I'm honest (and clearly I'm about to be), this page was already sitting in my journal.  It's one of my mop up pages. You know, the flipped stencil and ink spray job, except I clearly also sprayed on to it. I don't really do mop up very well. 

I found a butterfly in my 'basket of bits', and stuck him on. I then spent ten minutes wading through piles of stamps trying to find a little something that went with it. 

some splats.... gotta have some splats.. 

I think what I like most about this page is its limited colour palette and the amount of white space that there is.  Oh, and circles.. Love circles and dots. Might have to do another page like this at some point. 

So, there we have it from me for this week. Dribbles, circles, stamps and using up one of those ancient mop up pages tucked away in my art journal. Simple. 

The stamp is from Donna Downey's Advent set for those of you who might be interested. 

 As is this one. 

Thanks for stopping by and if you're joining in don't forget to leave a comment with a link to your blog so I can see where your creative ten minutes has taken you this week. 

Happy Creating!

Vicki 

ten minute tuesdays #3

Welcome and good evening. 

We took a break over Easter and last week to recharge and spend time with the kids and each other. And a jolly welcome break it was too!  As is typical though I fell ill during this and have suffered with the worse ear pain i have ever had in my life. Searing pain, total loss of hearing at times and vertigo. A hot cloth, bed rest, bucketfuls of painkillers and on one day a straight 12 hour sleep. 

Creativity took a back seat.  

I still have some hearing problems and am popping the painkillers like smarties. But hey, such is life. 

Today has been a hellishly busy day as it was my first day back to work.  Lots and lots of orders and emails to go through.  I'm making progress though.  While I was nagging the kids to pick up their toys and brush their teeth in readiness for bedtime I popped to my desk and grabbed my art journal. And splodged for ten minutes. This is what came of it. 

It has way more yellow on it that I had intended but I'm still getting used to using Golden Fluid Acrylics. 

I've used one of my favourite techniques of pulling the paint. It works a treat with these paints, as long as you move quick. 

This is round one. It feels like it needs more white, but hey that's for the next ten minutes I get to play. I know that this piece isn't going to be to everyone's taste, but I'm not aiming to create finished pieces in ten minutes. The idea is to just play for ten minutes, at a time. Right now that's as much as I can manage, but these short bursts feel good. Slap a bit of paint around, make a few marks, build on pieces. 

Right I have a hot date with my next round of tablets, and a desire for a nice cuppa. Don't forget to leave me a link to your ten minute tuesday posts. I love having a nose at what you're up to!

ten minute tuesdays

hello, good morning and welcome, doubly so if you're back for a ten minute tuesday! 

You can tell I'm "on holiday", said loosely as we have young kids, but said young kids have been kidnapped by the Grandparents for a couple of days. 

And BAM, I get a really nasty heavy cold just in time.  

Yay, Go Vicki!

So, before the cold hit, did I get any ten minutes in. Of course I did! 

This weeks ten minutes have been made easy by the arrival of art doodle love. 

You may well have come across it at some point out there in blog land, but so far I'm loving it.  Yep - I know I know, but it's just a book to doodle in isn't it? Well, yeah, but what did surprise me is the depth that some of the prompts want to take you do.  The pages I'm sharing here are warm up pages.  You won't see some of them, they will be strictly private. 

i guess that this is one of those books that you get as much out of it as you;re willing to put in.  

And well, for £6, I was willing to give it a go. 

I think I may have been preoccupied with the weather ... two very miserable weathery doodles! 

And time for some colour! The prompt was to fill the page with doodles, but I've gone the colour root with my trusty Inktense pencils. 

That's it.  I'm off to sort myself out now and get out while I've got my husband to myself. 

A rare thing indeedy!

If you're joining me for Ten Minute Tuesdays I would LOVE to see your ten minute creations.  

Leave me a comment with a link to your blog post and I'll stop by! 

See you all later! 

WOYWW...

Me, WOYWW? 

Yep, this is a rare one, but I find myself in a blogging mood this week.

 Maybe it's having the kids at home and craving two minutes escape. 

 Bet your bottom I won't be here next week while they are at Grandma's!

I have two desks.

 A paperwork desk and a painty desk. 

So here's a quick shot of how my day starts.

Oh the chocolate wrapper - not from this morning, from last night. 

That bit was clearly happy where is was and didn't want to be consigned to the rubbish bin just yet.  

This one is hanging around for those "bored now" moments. 

I plan to do some bread baking with the kids over the Easter break.  

 more WOYWW can be found over at Julia's place here

ten minute tuesdays

A quick little catch up on my ten minutes play time projects. 

This week, it's more journal play. 

I've only got as far as a background on this page, but the more I look at it the more I like it. I know (I can hear Dina Wakley over my shoulder....) "Don't get attached to your background, it's just a background!". But the honest fact is I do, and sometime they just stay like that and I do nothing more with them for a very long time. 

 This page has been done super quick with color wash spray and oil pastels, then sealed.

I wasn't sure how the oils would sit over the color wash. I was worried about them smearing, but it was all good in the end.  I've probably banged on about these Sennelier oil pastels before, but I adore them. I really should play with them more. They are the best, like little stick of butter. Worth every penny in my humble opinion. 

Next a quick sketch on another page. 

If I'm honest I'm not sure I should share this. It's been a while since I drew a face. Please forgive me. I clearly need to get back into the habit. Although that makes me sound like I was once someone who was more than half good at it...ha ha, I wish, but I have a go.

This was on a background of mop ups already in my journal, so all I've done is add some extra stencilling using 6x6 Circle Explosion Crafters Workshop stencil. I do love circles! 

That's it, my ten minutes sessions from the last week.  Now I need to round up the kids and drag them out, hopefully for more than ten minutes for they can burn off some energy.  That way I may get another ten minutes later.  I think this face could be my "thing" to work on this week. 

Happy Creating!  

And don't forget to share your ten minutes with me. I'd love to see. 

another ten minutes...

I'm trying to stick to grabbing ten minutes play time a couple of times a week.  This double page is in my A5ish sized moleskine notebook (or large in their language), which I uncovered from a pile of "stuff" where it's been sitting unloved. So I'm going to fill it will ten minute projects. 

That is to say I work on them for ten minutes when passing.  This page has probably taken me about an hour all told., over a week.              

Got any ten minute projects to share? 

getting greedy...

Yesterday, for once I decided "get painty woman" and did. I didn't let anything stand in my way, including the vacuum cleaner and the paperwork (which I'm happily being distracted from while I write this quick post)

I need to make some postcards. And in a little over an hour - I made five postcards.  

Sneaks above and scraps below. 

Photo's were taken using Instagram.  Loving it so far! Wondering about getting them printed off.  Square images appeal to me.  Why didn't I get this app before now?! 

Right, back to the paperwork trying to fall off my desk the pile is so high.  

Thanks for stopping by! 

Vicki 

testing...

Just playing around..
Bloggers mobile app and instagram.
Wonder which will frustrate me first...

ten minutes..

 I found a sheet of scratch paper sitting on my desk and I couldn't bin it, so I stuck it in my journal. Added some stamping with a Donna Downey stamp and some alphabet rub-on's I picked up in WHSmiths a millennium ago.  This is my kind of tiding up! 

It's not done, needs something else, but so far I like. All I need is another ten minute urge to finish it off. 

Bye for now

Vicki

Products Used 

 

loving the lofty view...

what has fast become my favourite part of having the loft converted is the clear view of the sun rising each morning. I don't think I will ever tire of this. It's just a shame we have other rooftops in the way but I can open the window's nice and wide to get shots like these even with those other pesky houses about.

Oh and getting a different way to view the weather on the windows. Although when we had snow to open the blinds and find a blanket of white looking back at me was a little unnerving at first. 

the return of the dribble...

Finally I found some time a couple of weeks ago to have a play in Palma's journal for our Collabor-ART pairs journal.  She has a theme  - Spice, so I'm taking that down a colour route. Or at least I did this time.  This is one of the new backgrounds I made. I love the white space I've left in the middle. Wonder what she'll do with it!